Willawaw Journal is an FREE online journal for poetry and art, published two to four times per year. Each issue features a poem prompt or mentor poem from one of our Northwest Poets Laureate (including Canada, Alaska, and possibly Australia–editors’ bias!) so that our readers and writers have a good measure of what we consider quality work. The poem prompt is provided to inspire our writers and artists–a jumping-off point. Play with the possibilities. The editors will do the same, providing some modeling for your explorations. Click here and scroll down for examples.
Themes
Each issue promotes a theme, specific to demographics or media:
U20O70–an invitation to our younger and older writers/artists (under the age of 20 and over 70) whose voices may be underrepresented.
Hybrid of poetry and image–from fully integrated image and words, to ekphrastic expression in which the poem is a response to an image/art, to a broadside in which the art is created on the same page as the poem and in response to it.
Audio clips–an opportunity for those authors, whose work is accepted to the issue, to submit an MP3 recording of their poems to go with the text.
These templates may increase or evolve at the editors’ discretion, so stay-tuned!
About Our Name
We love the sound and meaning of williwaw: a sudden gust of wind coming off the mountains to the sea. What a great impulse for a collection of poetry and art! But in deference to others who also liked the name, in its original spelling, we have chosen to write our name as it sounds, Will‘-a-waw. And if you remember to connect it to the word, journal, as in Willawaw Journal, you will avoid owl-like monsters and other distractions that might delay your arrival to our site.
The Editors
Our mission is to encourage readers to explore, and writers and artists to create, generating community where a diversity of voices is welcome.